3 – Sorrow’s learning, and letting goIn the last blog I worked through Anger and how you can use it to your benefit. Sharing how it is one of the most curious emotions, always seeking to understand. The next emotion we look at is Sorrow. One that we all know and has always been the most acceptable of all the 5 base emotions – Anger, Sorrow, Fear, Shame and Love.Myself, yes I spent a lot of time feeling sorry for my life. Sad for all the things that had happened to me and for a long time I didn’t realise how big an impact it was having on all parts of my life. When I was diagnosed with depression in my early 20’s I knew that I needed to change the way I did things. I wish I knew about the emotional code then, but then I had to go through all that I did to uncover it within me and be able to share it with you.Sorrow is easy to recognise and for all of us to understand not only why you feel sad, but also why others can feel sad too. When someone we love passes away, or leaves. Life not looking like the picture in our minds.When people treat you badly.When you don’t get what you wantThe list can go on, if you let it. For everyone, why you feel it, is so different. Each of us experiences sorrow is different ways to, who we choose to be in it and how we let it affect us.How many of you try to cover up your sorrow? How many feel like you simply can’t show it? I learned in my childhood to hide real emotions, and there was simply no time for sadness. It was my experience that another disappointment was coming about the corner. I did not know how to learn through my emotions, I did not know you could. You need to feel it, whatever the emotion is. In this case Sorrow. Giving yourself permission to feel sad when you need to is the very first step. It is important for you to feel sad, disappointed or a little lost sometimes. It is important for you to feel each emotion based on what you feel is right and not based on what everyone else is saying how you ‘should’ feel. I will get to sorrows purpose soon, and yes it does have purpose. For now let’s look at the difference between allowing yourself to truly feel the full force of sorrow when it comes up and living in a constant state of sorrow. How long do you stay sad? Truly there is no right or wrong answer. Each experience is unique and requires different amounts of time, depths of sorrow. However what I will say on this is, it is not meant to be a constant emotion that you feel every moment of the day. My mum passed away 16 years ago and there are still times when I feel far more sorrow than I have before, but these are only moments and they pass. I choose to go with it rather than fight it, because when I fight it, I become blind to what it wants to show me. So if you find yourself feeling sad more often than any other emotion then that last part of this blog is going to help you get beyond it.Like all the base emotions Sorrow has purpose to help you learn. After all, why are we designed to feel first and think second? Answer – emotions are there for us to listen to, learn from and grow through.Sorrows has two questions – What is the lesson? & What do I need to let go of?Sorrow helps you learn lessons and let go, that is the sole purpose of our base emotion sorrow. So simple right. When you use Sorrows for its purpose it will help you release what you don’t need any more and take the lessons with you from the loss and challenges that come up in your life.Feeling sad is not the issue, the only problem is when you choose to hold onto your sorrow, to carry it with you all the time, to live in it. When you choose not to see the lesson or what you need to let go of you can be blinded and will always to look to blame others for why you are sad, every time.Take the time now to think of something that you feel sad around. Perhaps a story that you have be telling and carrying for a long time. You'll know when you have the right story, your body will begin to feel heavy. Now I want to you ask yourself sorrows questions. What did you learn through this experience? What do you need to let go of?There are always lessons, you may need to dig a little deeper to get out of your own way to see them. Letting go can feel really challenging at first because you have created the habit of holding on. Take the time to keep looking a little more to find the answers to sorrow questions if you can’t see them at first.After you have answered the questions, there will be changes to how you feel about the story, how you now view it and mostly how you will tell it going forward.What are the differences? What does the story look like now? What has changed with how you look at it?Now that you know how to use sorrow to your benefit, being able to move through sorrow with purpose will always leave you feeling more confident and stronger than ever.Next time you will be reading about FEAR, one of the most misunderstood emotions.Thank you and please remember – BE YOU and FEEL GOOD, Ema Borg - Unique Phoenix